Terry Eagleton is the Richard Price Memorial Lecturer at Newington Green Unitarian Church, for 2010. The lecture will take place on Saturday 18 September 2010, at 7.30 pm at the church on the north side of Newington Green, Stoke Newington.

Widely regarded as Britain’s most influential living literary critic, Terry Eagleton was formerly Warton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, and now divides most of his time between Lancaster and Dublin. Described in the Financial Times as ‘that rare thing, a God-fearing Marxist’, he is a prolific writer and a witty and provocative speaker. He continues to write regularly for the New Statesman, Red Pepper and the Guardian.

At Newington Green, Terry Eagleton has chosen to speak on the topic, ‘The New Atheism and the War on Terror’.

In 2009 Terry Eagleton published Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, based on lectures he gave at Yale University. In it he attacks the strongly atheistic position of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and argues that the genuine radicalism of original religion was abandoned as it became institutionalised. Salon’s review called it, ‘brisk, funny and challenging’. The Financial Times said, ‘This is a bold and stylish book, guaranteed to provoke — in the best possible way — anyone who might read it.’

Terry Eagleton’s most recent book, On Evil, was published in May this year. In it, he launched a surprising defence of the reality of evil, drawing on literary, theological, and psychoanalytic sources to suggest that evil, no mere mediaeval artefact, is a real phenomenon with palpable force in our contemporary world.

Speaking about the announcement, Guy Bentham, chair of the congregation said, ‘We are very excited to have such a powerful thinker and speaker at Newington Green, and one who fits so well with our history of radicalism and dissent. As someone who is engaged in contemporary debates on religion – though not himself a conventionally religious figure – he is particularly welcome at this unconventional church.’

The Lecture is named in honour of Dr Richard Price, a distinguished former minister at Newington Green, and a leading Unitarian figure of the eighteenth century who was known as a champion of liberty. The speaker is asked to address an important or topical aspect of liberty, reason and ethics.

Tickets for the lecture are available in advance, from Ticketweb via the church’s website at www.new-unity.org or by calling 08444 771000.